Following is the transcript of White House spokesman
Mike McCurry’s Gaborone press briefing on the bilateral meeting between
President Clinton and President Masire of Botswana:
MR. MCCURRY: I’m going to give you a read-out on the meeting.
Obviously, it was a very warm, cordial meeting that reflects the
excellent bilateral relations that the United States enjoys with
Botswana.
The president met privately with President Masire and then the two
delegations joined together. President Masire introduced at some length
Vice President Mogae, who will take over the day after tomorrow as
president. I think you know that President Masire is vacating office
just short of the end of his term, which would expire next year, and
obviously the vice president, who will succeed him, is expected to be a
leading contender for the Office of Presidency when they have elections
next year.
President Masire said relations with the United States have been
excellent since the country was founded. When it gained independence in
1966, he said, they have been very good indeed, but never better than
now with your visit. The Botswana government is making a real effort to
increase international tourism, in the game preserve area especially. So
they are especially delighted that he’s going to Chobe and spending time
over the next day and a half leisurely seeing the game preserve. And
there were a lot of funny remarks, some of which I’ll give you, about
the president’s upcoming visit to the game preserve. But they are very
proud that he’s going there. They think it’ll be a big boost to tourism,
so they complimented the president on the fact that he was spending some
down time here.
The president said he was honored to be here. He said that Botswana
has perhaps the best government serving its people in all of sub-Sahara
Africa; the record of service to people and the commitment to democracy
is perhaps strongest here of all the countries that we have visited. The
president said, you’ve had great success here and I hope more African
countries will follow your lead.
The president particularly noted the progress they’re making on the
status of women. The government has been doing a lot to correct some of
the historical inequities that women face in Botswana.
QUESTION: What are some of those?
ANSWER: They are focusing on violence against women, which is a
serious problem in this society. They’ve got a lot of non-governmental
organizations that have been working on a long-term plan to implement
what the government of Botswana calls its National Policy on Women, that
was adopted in 1996, focusing, really, on six areas.
First, women and poverty. Second, women in power-sharing and
decision-making roles, which they’ve historically been excluded from in
Botswana. Three, education and vocational training for women. Four,
women’s health issues. And, five, female children and the role that –
you know, there’s historically been greater status attached to male
offspring. And so they’ve been trying to equalize and raise the status
of female children. And, last, violence against women and abuse of
women.
Q: Mike, is infanticide a problem?
A: I don’t know whether it is or not. There’s nothing here that
indicates whether it is.
Q: Are they still meeting or is it over?
A: The two presidents were just collecting the first ladies and then
they’re coming over here to the reception. They’re trying to stay pretty
much on schedule because we have to land before nightfall in Kisane
tonight or else we can’t get in tonight.
Q: How long was this meeting?
A: They met privately for about 20 minutes, and then met for roughly
a half-hour in the delegation format.
Q: Did they talk about the trade bill or the ACRI?
A: They talked about — I’ll go through some of the other subjects
that they raised. President Masire was interested, as other leaders have
been, in the status of the Democratic Republic of Congo and how efforts
can be made to make Congo more successful.
The president complimented — or actually General Jamerson, who’s one
of the members of our delegation, talked about how well trained and
disciplined the Botswana Defense Force is. That then naturally led into
a discussion of the ACRI. The president asked Assistant Secretary Susan
Rice to give an update on the African Crisis Response Initiative, and
she ticked off some of the countries that have started participating in
joint training exercises. We will see one of those in Senegal later in
the trip. But it was sort of a subtle reminder to the government of
Botswana that we continue to hope that they will become productively
involved in the work of the ACRI.
Q: They’re not participating in that yet?
A: Not currently participating, although there have been discussions
that have been under way about whether or not they might consider it. We
were not attempting to get their acceptance on this trip, but we
certainly hope that the further discussions we have with them will lead
them to consider participating.
The president talked at one point about — or no, Sandy Berger raised
the issue that we all had to be issued new phones when we were here. And
we learned that that’s because the emerging Botswana cellular phone
system is digital-based, so that it’s more advanced technologically than
what our normal White House equipment works on. So the president says,
that’s not a comment on the United States of America, but it is a
comment on the White House that you have more sophisticated technology
here.
The president then talked about how much he was looking forward to
going to the game preserve and told a story of a friend of his who has
stayed at this same lodge that he will stay at, who woke up one morning
with a baboon sitting at the end of his bed, and said the baboon was
kind of in and out of the apartment the whole time that he was here. And
when he left he felt like he was leaving a friend.
The president then also asked about Botswana. He said, I’ve heard
that there is one elephant for every 18 people in Botswana, and he asked
if that were true and if anyone knew. One of the ministers on the
Botswana side said that they thought that was probably right. And he
said, well, that’s both good and bad for me. He says, it’s interesting,
I’ve read a lot about the elephant population and some of the work that
you’re doing concerning the elephant population — they’ve got a very
large population and it causes some damage to ecosystems because of how
much elephants eat and drink in the course of a day.
But, the president also said, the other problem I have is of course
they’re the symbol of the other party back home so, he said, there will
probably be lots of pictures with me and elephants in the next couple of
days.
That was pretty much it. They did not talk specifically about the
trade initiative. Botswana, according to the ambassador — we were
talking on the way here — they would be less likely affected by the
president’s Africa trade initiative than some other countries. Their
principal export item is diamonds and they’re not an economy that has
been heavily based on assistance from outside. They, of course,
graduated from formal U.S. assistance some time ago, so they’re not an
aid recipient, as have some of the other countries been that we’ve
visited.
Q: Mike, there was an article in one of the papers about indigenous
residents of the Kalahari area who are hoping that Clinton’s visit would
help them avoid a forced or encouraged move out of that area to
settlement. Has that issue come up or is it likely to?
A: I don’t believe it came up in this meeting. I can check with the
ambassador, see if we’ve worked on that or if that’s been an issue
that’s come up. That’s the first I had heard of that.
Q: Down in Washington the pool wants to know, is the president aware
of this Juanita Broderick allegations and is he planning on addressing
at all back home, when he comes back?
A: There was a lengthy response — is that the letter that the Jones
side –
Q: This is the woman 20 years ago who says he –
A: This is in the new filing by Jones? There was a lengthy response
given by Jim Kennedy from the White House Legal Counsel’s Office on
that. We have not seen the filing here and have only seen one article
about it, which didn’t even mention the name of the person you just
mentioned. So we have really nothing to add to the response that’s
already been given.
Q: This is a stupid question, but did he have any comment on the fact
that they played “Beautiful Dreamer” as he was reviewing the troops?
A: No, I didn’t hear him say anything about that.
Q: What’s the joke about the digital phones again, that it was a
comment on the White House’s equipment?
A: It wasn’t a comment on advanced technology in the United States,
but probably was a comment on White House technology, that they have
more sophisticated cellular technology here in Botswana.
Q: Thank you.
A: Thanks.
March 29, 1998
